Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

[307] was seen in the new Society's provision for having its meetings composed of officers, agents, and a proportional representation (through male delegates) of auxiliary societies, instead of welcoming the largest possible representation. Regardless of the fact that no antislavery society had ever attempted to settle the question of woman's rights, but only to interpret the word ‘person’ in its constitution, the new society made it a ground of separation from the old that the latter upheld a change in the sphere of woman's action which was ‘a moral wrong—a thing forbidden alike by the word of God, the dictates of right reason, the voice of wisdom, and the modesty of unperverted nature.’ Notwithstanding this, the Massachusetts Abolition Society was made auxiliary to the American Society, which had gone further than the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society by appointing women on committees. This affiliation was ‘in the vain hope that the American Society will retrace its steps at the next annual meeting. Should it adhere to its recent decision, then an attempt will doubtless be¹ made to organize a rival national society, to be managed by a small conservative body, after the pattern of the Massachusetts Abolition Society.’ Equally shallow pretexts with the woman question were the alleged coldness of the Massachusetts Board towards political action, and its rejection of resolutions (on account of their intended proscriptive application) as if in subserviency to the ‘no-government’ doctrine.

The next move came from the New York Executive Committee, which issued an address to the abolitionists² of the United States, refusing countenance to the novel doctrine that it is not a duty to go to the polls, and promising to resist extraneous reform projects from any quarter. This utterance was timed for the National Convention of Abolitionists which the Committee, in response to a desire on the part of some of the auxiliary³ societies, had proposed to meet at Albany in July, the American Society concurring at its May meeting. Both